I’ve always maintained that one of World of Warcraft’s greatest strengths is always treating the game like a rough draft (maybe not always a positive, but ultimately a net positive). Many of its competitors have launched with a more “modern” feel, but quickly fall by the wayside as WoW continues to update and reinvent mechanics, while those games remain in the era they launched.
On the other hand, treating everything as a rough draft also seems to apply to the story, and in my opinion that’s the story’s biggest weakness.
Almost every time the story culminates in a controversial retcon, we eventually learn that it wasn’t the original plan or at least have some hints of a earlier shift in the plot.
The earliest one I can think of is the end of Wrath of the Lich King. I don’t know how many still remember, but “there must always be a Lich King” was a huge controversy in part due to contradicting important pieces of previous lore (like the very origin of the Forsaken). From what I recall, it was eventually admitted that they didn’t know Bolvar was going to end up in that role until late in the plot.
Cataclysm isn’t as obvious, but there are still signs. We were originally told that Deathwing emerged from the Deathwing Scar, which is consistent with the Cataclysm cinematic. However, the final version of the plot has him come from and eventually end up at the Maelstrom, something previously associated with the naga. Why the Deepholm portal ended up in the Maelstrom is a bit baffling, and why Nazjatar somehow doesn’t seem to be anywhere near the Maelstrom in Battle for Azeroth is never explained.
Warlords of Draenor, which is one of the least beloved expansions, was also the expansion that got its story locked down later than any other. Majors changes to the maps were still being made in playable testing phases, and BlizzCon maps and even the Lords of War shorts were built on eventually-changed elements. We were even outright told different concepts for the premise of the story, some of which differed immensely.
Shadowlands, which I don’t have to introduce, has strong evidence of a major storyline shift late in development. Between the pre-launch promotion and the final game, the Jailer went from an ominously chained up being like the Runecarver, to freely roaming the Maw without any explanation of how or when he was freed. As late as the beta, flavor text explaining the origins of the Maw were removed and eventually seemingly contradicted. Lots of things imply Korthia is not what it was intended to be. So by the time we get to the Jailer saying his motivation was to save us from “what’s to come”, nothing he did makes any sense.
Despite the Worldsoul Saga supposedly being a trilogy, there are already hints of changes that make it weaker as a trilogy for no apparent reason. Unlike what I’ve mentioned before, this relies heavily on speculation, but I think it still makes a more coherent story. Harandar was planned for the War Within, and I think if Harandar was in War Within and K’aresh was in Midnight instead of the Voidstorm, a lot of things would have made way more sense.
Undermine would have ended with Xal’atath leaving to find the ethereals, establishing her as an overarching hook to the trilogy, but letting War Within still come to its own conclusion, having us follow the black blood to Harandar and resolve it there (so much of the Aln stuff feels like a hastily rewritten black blood plot). Then, when the Sunwell is under attack by the Voidstorm, we would have found Dimensius behind it. This felt like it was being foreshadowed, and would have made his appearance feel much more threatening and dire. After we beat Dimensius, Xal’atath still could have swooped in and revealed her real plan was to absorb him all along, but it would have been a real surprise instead of us knowing we were helping her without any sort of plan for her betrayal. Then, Xal’atath benefiting from the first two main raids wouldn’t have felt as contrived, either, because stopping Dimensius still would have felt like an important win even if she benefited.
Overall, I still tend to enjoy World of Warcraft. This isn’t me trying to be mean to the writers. In fact, I assume this happens because they don’t have time to adjust everything to the new idea, but it would be fine if they had that time. I just want to suggest to whoever it matters, to stop making the writers having to make last minute changes they don’t have the chance to adapt to. Even if it’s not perfect, the first draft is always going to be better than a half-finished second draft that contradicts the part of the first draft that remains.